THE GREEN EDGE OF ASIA

a door that is not there. Although conventionalized
for hundreds of years, these and other movements
still reveal an occasional quality of vividness, as when
a plank between a river bank and a boat is gingerly
crossed.

"Make-up" offers fewer such opportunities; the
faces are captive behind a wall of white; twirls and
furrows, grins and frowns, and a blank beauty, an
impersonal melancholy, stare at you the play through,
in frightful fixity. A handsome hero will wear a
black beard to his knees; an irate villain a red beard.
Black is the colour for good looks; red is the symbol
for anger; a red beard and hair will therefore always
adorn an irate character.

At intervals, or after a long speech the actors turn
their backs to the audience, and a dark-gowned
attendant brings them a feeding-cup of tea and holds
it to their lips while they drink, clear their hoarse
throats, and spit. The attendant goes out, wanders on
again, removes a chair, changes a property, or helps
an actor through an exit in order that his elaborate
dress shall not be damaged.

Although the Chinese theatre is the most difficult
thing to appreciate, it is nevertheless not a waste of
time to visit it, for there the foreign spectator cannot
fail to perceive what distances in time as well as space
separate China from most other countries, what
thorough patience he must exercise, how completely